


Comrades

by sweetcarolanne



Category: Tipping the Velvet - Sarah Waters
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-18
Updated: 2010-12-18
Packaged: 2017-10-13 18:20:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/140286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetcarolanne/pseuds/sweetcarolanne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Florence reflects on her relationship with the late Lilian, and on her growing new one with Nancy Astley...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Comrades

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kleenexwoman](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kleenexwoman/gifts).



> Disclaimer: I don't own the characters and am not making money from them, so don't sue, please! Dear recipient, I tried to give you most of what you asked for so I hope you like this. It was fun to write and I'm glad I had a chance to write in this fandom, which I love! Many thanks to my beta who wishes to remain anonymous.

There were times when the differences hurt too much to bear. Those things that made Nancy so dissimilar from what Lilian had been. Sometimes the ache was almost physical, the twinge of memory that brought Lily’s features into sharp focus in Florence Banner’s mind. Her dear, strong face that could never have been conventionally beautiful, rather grave and heavy-browed, but bearing a decided resemblance to Eleanor Marx who was a great heroine to Lily, and now to Florence too.

Oh, Nancy was good-hearted and hard-working enough, but she had had to ask Florence what “cooperative” meant early on, and didn’t care for the poetry of Walt Whitman at all. She hadn’t liked it when Florence had read to her from “Leaves of Grass”, that beloved book of Whitman’s words that had so deeply stirred the great and generous heart of Lilian. Florence had merely laughed and called Nancy a philistine when she heard Nancy mocking the poems, but underneath the laughter was a sadness, a heavy grief that refused to shift from deep within Florence’s soul. It was that sorrow, as well as the affection that despite Florence’s best efforts was burgeoning for Nancy, that prompted her to tell Nancy all about what she had felt for Lilian.

Lily – matchless and irreplaceable, with her quick wit and forthright opinions, and her passion for justice and good works… ironically, it had been a missed meeting with Nancy that had caused Florence and Lily to cross paths. Although, of course, Florence hadn’t known that she was Nancy then. She was, seemingly, just a strange girl who liked to sit on balconies in trousers… who had piqued Florence’s interest, and even made her blush a little, as she seemed likely to be a fellow tom. And she’d seemed willing enough to accompany Florence to a lecture at the Athenaeum Hall (though a little more enthusiastic about pre-lecture refreshments, in Florence’s opinion).

Well, Nancy had not shown up to the lecture – or the refreshments either, surprisingly – it was not till much, much later that Florence learned the rather bizarre reason why. So Florence attended the event on her own, and of course, met Lilian there.

Lily had captured Florence’s attention from the very first. She was no raving beauty, of course, but Florence had never been drawn to the flashy girls, or the delicate, shrinking-violet fragile and feminine types with soft hands and long, fluttering lashes. Lily was slightly built but looked spirited, with a firm set to her jaw and a passionate, earnest gaze that had been fixed on the speaker throughout his talk, intense with genuine interest. And afterwards, the intelligence of the question she asked, which had caught the speaker quite off guard, so impressed Florence that she knew she had to get to know this woman.

They had talked for an hour, continuously – Lily’s opinions on politics, class and society were fascinating indeed. And from there, a friendship had blossomed, a friendship unlike any other that Florence had ever experienced before. Inexorably, Florence found herself falling in love with Lilian; but intimate embraces between the two of them would never be. Lily was only drawn to men in matters of the flesh, and in fact had a beau who wished to marry her.

“OF course, I never would get married to anybody, Flo,” Lily had told Florence earnestly, her fingers entwining with her friend’s as they sat together. “I believe in the free union too strongly… and I could never give up on our life’s work to live as a bourgeois wife! I will always be your friend, your comrade, Flo, and you will be mine… comrades forever!”

It was something that Lily often said, that if women may be comrades, then Florence was hers. Something that meant a great deal to Florence. She knew that Lily could never love her in the way she truly wanted, and accepted the fact, just as Lily knew that Florence was a tom and didn’t mind. They could never be lovers, but they shared an affection that grew far beyond the boundaries of friendship, or even sisterhood. It was deep and beautiful, intense and real… there was no name in spoken language that came close enough to describing what they had, although “comradeship” was almost adequate.

It was that comradeship that sustained both women during what was at first Lily’s darkest hour – when she found herself with child and was both cast out by her landlady and abandoned by the man who had professed to love her. That precious comradeship led Florence and Lily to build the beginnings of a new life together, a life that Lily had described as “truly revolutionary”.

Lily had moved in with Florence and her brother Ralph, and she and Florence planned to raise the baby as their own. From the very start, Lily had made herself an integral part of the lives of Florence and Ralph, bringing a joy and vigour into the house that had never been there before, what with the chaos and dirt, and the strains and stresses of over-work.

She had Florence and Ralph strip the walls of their dingy paper coating, and paint them in bright colours, the parlour walls being stained a cheerful blue. She would sit for hours with Florence in the evenings, weaving a rustic-type rug which at first seemed at first ridiculously gaudy, but then appeared to blend in to the vivacious new atmosphere that had descended upon their home, talking of their various causes and hopes for the future. Of course, they discussed the baby and ideas for what they would call it if it was a boy. Lily had already decided on Eleanor for a girl, but couldn’t think of any male names she liked. She didn’t want a name that sounded religious, or too bourgeois, and she fancied something that was dignified but not pretentious. The subject of names was one that kept the two women occupied for the longest time; they would sit and talk and toss ideas in the air, with Ralph occasionally popping his head in to suggest something silly that would end up dissolving everyone into peals of laughter.

It wasn’t until one quiet evening upstairs that they found the right name, when Florence and Lily were preparing themselves for sleep, lying under the blankets in bed. Florence, with trembling fingers, was gently stroking Lily’s furrowed, worried brow as she whispered soothing words, trying to calm Lily down from whatever unspoken thing she was fretting about, and her heart was aching because no deeper intimacy could exist between them. Normally she was contented with the relationship that she and Lily already shared, and she knew that if she needed the company of other toms, there were always friends like Annie Page, and Ruth and Nora, and there was always the Boy in the Boat. The ladies’ room at the local public house, where women like herself could meet. She had told Lily about the Boy, but had never taken her there. Oh, Lily would of course never be shocked by the bawdy conversation of the gay girls, or by the more masculine toms in trousers playing billiards, but it hadn’t seemed right to bring a woman with a baby growing inside her into that environment…

Yes, that night Florence was wanting more than she had, and desperately needed something to distract her thoughts away from remembering what it was like to watch Lily sleep and dream, or the look on her face when Florence read poetry to her in bed. Baby names were a safe topic of conversation, something pure to stem her desires.

Florence had taken a deep breath and said aloud, “What about Cyril? We could call him Cyril.”

She didn’t know what had made her think of that name. It wasn’t one that was particularly significant to her – merely that of some obscure relative, a second or third cousin perhaps – or one that she really liked herself. It had just come into her head spontaneously, but it made Lily’s eyes sparkle, and she had cried out, “That’s perfect!” and had actually hugged Florence tight, which made her feel giddy for a few moments and then breathe easier as her unbidden desires began to finally subside.

And so Cyril the baby had become – and he was a perfect baby, and Florence now adored him, even though at the time of his birth she wished that he had died instead of Lilian.

For what felt like the longest time Florence had secretly wished that she could die too, struggling to bury her fearsome grief beneath charitable works and caring for little Cyril. And then Nancy had stormed into her life from off the street, so much in need and so eager to make a place for herself in the Banner household. Oh, how unwelcome Nancy had been in those early days, because she was another girl in the house, making her presence felt and her mark on the surroundings, and not being Lilian!

But Florence’s feelings were changing now. She had not wanted to admit it to herself at first, but an attraction to Nancy was building. She could tell that Nancy felt something for her too – it was evident in Nancy’s eyes and her tone of voice, and in the way she now jealously neglected Lilian’s gaudy rug instead of beating it meticulously clean.

Oh yes, it still hurt a lot sometimes that Nancy wasn’t Lilian, her beloved comrade. But Nancy could become something else, something just as meaningful. Florence and Nancy could perhaps become to each other what Florence and Lilian could never have been. They could be more than comrades to each other, if such a thing were truly possible.


End file.
